#i have bestowed upon tashiro Gender. a great honor

[dirtbra1n]

if you’d asked tashiro gonzaburou maybe two years ago if he likes boys, he’d have probably told you something like, “don’t think so,” and asked you in turn, minutes later, if you wanted to go do karaoke.

if you asked tashiro gonzaburou maybe like right now if he likes boys, he. well. did you know that no one knows like… anything about themselves? tashiro gonzaburou didn’t know that.

about that other question though. he’ll get back to you on that. it’s kind of complicated. in the meantime, it’s like this:

it’s third year. his class is fired up over the culture festival. tashiro is sitting at his desk, hands on his cheeks.

“so it’s going to be miyano again, right?”

“it is absolutely going to be miyano.”

he is pouting. doesn’t anyone realize how left out he feels? kuresawa isn’t even in their class anymore, the traitor, why can’t tashiro be the runner-up girl?

miyano catches his eye. “if I can’t get a girlfriend,” tashiro says to him, feeling a little scorned, “I might as well be a girlfriend. right?”

miyano looks as if he’s seen god.

kuresawa, sensing opportunity in that way he does, slides to a halt in front of their door.

“tashiro, look here,” he says. tashiro does. kuresawa’s phone camera shutters. he doesn’t look up from his phone as he announces, “my girlfriend thinks you’d be pretty as a girl.” he does look up from his phone, though, to add, “but you wouldn’t be as pretty as her.”

tashiro’s pout worsens. he clenches his eyes shut. “go back to your class already!” he wails. “you traitor!”

miyano, unperturbed by the exchange, continues standing as if he’d seen the light of heaven. he flips his phone open and types fervently.

this was, in retrospect, a red flag that went tragically unnoticed.

when tashiro opens his eyes next, hanzawa masato is looking down at him.

tashiro falls out of his chair.

mind you, he doesn’t stay there very long. it’s too late for him to hide, so he instead moves to stand and situates himself in a defensive stance. hanzawa senpai continues standing right where he was, holding a pair of bags in either hand.

it would come to tashiro’s attention, much later than any of his other classmates, that he’d been invited to play stylist again.

it is right about then that shirahama materializes in the doorway. he is holding a bag of miscellaneous supplies that he was sent off to retrieve. it sways forebodingly. tashiro can still only imagine what the scene laid out in front of him must have looked like: tashiro gonzaburou ready to fight for his life, hanzawa masato senpai standing menacingly armed with two handfuls of mystery bags. miyano as well.

a layer of misfortune that tashiro hadn’t anticipated: shirahama knows that things are kind of complicated. shirahama knows exactly how things are complicated. shirahama’s brain is rotted by girl games.

shirahama, thusly, probably sees before him a scene of jealousy and confrontation. and miyano is there as well.

kuresawa reappears in the doorway. “hanzawa senpai, could you actually help me with my makeup first?” he asks. shirahama visibly grits his teeth, waiting. “I want to send a picture to my girlfriend.” he falls to the floor in his agonized bachelorhood.

hanzawa senpai steps over his corpse on his way out.

tashiro collapses bonelessly back into his seat. miyano joins him and starts reading one of his manga. tashiro peeks over his shoulder, every so often, because he’s curious.

a few minutes pass like that.

tashiro’s phone buzzes. text from kuresawa. ‘senpai has a wig for you. come here.’ tashiro leaves miyano sitting there, listening with suspicious eyes as shirahama laments to him from the floor about his agonies.

hanzawa senpai’s eyes, meanwhile, are just as unreadable as ever.

he says to tashiro, lilted, unreadable, “take a seat, tashiro-kun.”

kuresawa’s blocked off the door with his body when tashiro turns to flee. kuresawa is a bad person.

tashiro sits, and closes his eyes, and waits. when he feels hands moving his head around, he squints just to check that it isn’t kuresawa. his eyes fall closed again.

this is hardly the first time senpai’s hands have been on his face, anyway. tashiro can’t stress enough how kind of complicated everything is.

tashiro wakes up a while later to find hanzawa senpai sitting across from him. he’s talking to miyano, who looks thrilled at the end product. kuresawa stands at the ready with his phone. shirahama is, startlingly, maybe five centimeters from his left cheek.

for the second time that day, tashiro falls out of his chair.

kuresawa orates in a dull voice, “no, young lady, you have to be more careful than that…” ka-chick.

kuresawa is a very bad person.

then again, hanzawa senpai is laughing breathlessly above him, so he’s probably no saint either.

tashiro stands up, straightens his clothes. kuresawa shows him the photo he just took, and—

“oh, I’m pretty, huh?”

hanzawa senpai rests his head on his hand to look at him.

kuresawa, perpetually unsubtle, says, “miyano, come with me to wash your face. shirahama, you too.”

he drags them away. only tashiro watches them leave.

it seems like tashiro missed the golden hour, because the room is rapidly sinking into shades of emotive blues.

hanzawa senpai still hasn’t really said anything to him, is still just looking at him. he’s smiling, sort of, but his eyes betray nothing.

that in itself sort of says everything tashiro feels like he needs to know, though.

“so,” tashiro says, just barely pushing the limits of acceptable volume for the atmosphere, “I really look like a girl, right?”

hanzawa senpai hardly gets to open his mouth before shirahama comes barrelling in a craze through the door. hanzawa senpai takes that as his cue to leave.

he looks meaningfully at tashiro one last time, smiling faintly—halfway amused, the other half veiled behind the same telling unreadability as before—before collecting his bags and smiling broader, lips curling upwards. he floats into the hallway, now being lit with makeshift lanterns for what tashiro can only assume is vibes, and calls, “miyano-kuuun.”

shirahama lurches where he stands. tashiro frowns displeasedly at him.

“ugh, don’t do that. you look too much like a girl.”

tashiro fluffs the wig on his head and pouts instead.

shirahama groans.

echoing down the hall, distant now, they hear again, “mi—ya—no—kuuun.”

“…you two are so weird.”

tashiro startles a little. “what’s it to you,” he asks.

“nothing, I guess.”

silence settles.

“I lied. is this gonna be another thing you make me deal with?”

tashiro groans.